


Five times words had to be spoken

by RahDamon



Series: Love Square Week 2016 [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Love Square Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 11:23:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8798980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RahDamon/pseuds/RahDamon
Summary: Four times words had to be spoken out loud and the one time when they echoed in the silence between them





	

I

“Hey, M’Lady, we had fun, right? It was fun being together.”

Ladybug blinked down and squinted to her side. Chat’s head was on her shoulder, though, and his thick blonde hair and black cat ears blocked her from seeing his eyes. His tone was weirdly solemn and she hadn’t missed how his claws had dug into the metal they were sitting on. Also, his questions sound … off.

Seconds passed before she lifted her head and buried it into his hair making sure to scratch along his scalp and behind his miraculous ears.

“Of course, Kitty. We’re still having fun. I bet we’ll have lots more, too.”

He hummed against her shoulder. Soon humming turned into purring which grew high-pitched whenever she pressed down firmer during scratching. Chat didn’t talk anymore, just aligned both of them so they were almost melting into each other.

Still. What had brought on that question? Especially out of nowhere.

“Why do you ask?”

Chat mumbled something.

“I’m afraid I’m not the one with super senses, Kitty.”

His head lifted from her shoulder and she tilted her head to look him in they eyes. They were flickering from one side to the other but never settled on Ladybug. As soon as Chat noticed she was watching him he slammed his eyes together and flushed.

She waited another five minutes before giving up. Of course, that’s when he’d speak up.

“Are we friends?”

They both blinked before Chat let out a squeak and hid his face with his claws.

Silly Kitty.

“Of course we are.”

“Even though I have a crush on you?”

That one remark back when they had fought The Pharaoh reared its head in Ladybug’s mind. She had called him the braver one between the two of them and she still believed it. And this was proof. She’d never able to bluntly acknowledge her crush to Adrien.

“Yes. Even if you have a crush on me.”

Suddenly her arms were full of black leather and her neck was her Kitty’s pillow as he buried his head into it. Ladybug just smiled and hugged him back.

 

II

Adrien glanced at Marinette and had to stiffle a rather unmanly giggle. She was sitting in her seat, her head on her pillowing arms and lowly sleeptalking. He couldn’t understand the exact words but it was cute, anyways.

“…any way you can imagine. Now, people, pair up. You have to do a little bit of research and a quite tiny presentation on something we handled this lesson. I’m even nice enough to let you choose your topic.”

Their teacher smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. Adrien shuddered as it reminded him of Copycat, Animan and Volpina all rolled into one.

“You have two minutes to choose a partner. If you haven’t done so and told me you have the pleasure of doing thrice the work.”

Oh well, that’s be easy, he’d just ask Nino–

“Mhmhm…Kitty…”

Marinette’s mumbling voice reached his ear and without thinking Adrien called out that he and Marinette were a pair.

For a moment Adrien smiled. His friend was sleeping, there was no way she’d be able to join a pair quickly enough. And he knew that the poor girl had barely any time at all, what with madly designing for her future, homework, babysitting, actually sewing and actively helping her parents with the family bakery. No need for an increased work load. Then he remembered Nino.

Aghast–Aghreste, his mind helpfully supplied– he whirled as well as he could on his seat, just to hear Alya partnering with Nino. Heaving a sigh of relief Adrien grinned at Nino who merely snorted and shook his head in mock disappointment. ( He hoped it was only mocking.)

“Well, I see what you’re doing, Mister Agreste. Ditching your bestie for a hot girl. Tsk, tsk.”

As Adrien protested his cheeks colored. Marinette was pretty but that wasn’t the reason why he had offered to be her partner. He had offered out of the goodness of his heart and because he was worried about his friend! Nothing else!

Nino chortled. “No need to freak out, man. I completely understand. Besides, I gotta do the presentation now with my own hot girl.” Wriggling his eyebrows Nino turned to Alya with a grin. She just snorted and they started lowkey squabbling Adrien forgotten. Which suited him just fine. Until they suddenly smirked at each other and turned him as one, an unholy gleam in their eyes.

The bell rung startling them all.

“Saved by the bell, huh?” Adrien muttered before smiling at his friends. “It’s lunchtime, you go on. I’ll wait for Marinette to wake up.”

They both stared at him before chuckling and complying with his words. He didn’t understand why they chuckled or what was so amusing but when Alya slipped out of her seat he slipped in. Adrien would let Marinette sleep for twenty minutes, he decided as his classmates tumbled out of the room–tumblred out of the room in cases like Max or Nathaniel from what Adrien could see of their phones.

Once the room was empty except Adrien and Marinette–and Plagg but a craned look into his bag revealed his kwami was snoozing and were those cheese crumbles on his notebooks? Damn it, Plagg!– he sacked back in his seat.

It was rather quiet, nothing but the faint noise from the outside and Marinette chuffed breaths. It was peaceful and Adrien threw a fond look at Marinette. Despite her actions and general dislike of him she’d never failed to make his day brighter, just by being her awkwardly self. Even more awkward than him, sometimes!

He was staring at her face when he realized that he was staring in dazed blue eyes. A smile flit on his face.

“Heya, Marinette.”

“Heya, handsome,” she mumbled back. One of his eyebrows shot up at that greeting and Marinette seemed to have noticed what exactly she had said in the same exact moment because she flushed a red as deep as His Lady’s suit.

“I-I mean, hello, A-Adrien. Oh my gosh, I’m so, so sorry. I mean, hello,” Marinette finished cringing having shot up in her seat and now wilting back into it hands hiding her face. She might have also whimpered.

Too funny and adorable. Adrien laughed.

“It’s okay, Marinette.”

She peeked at him through her fingers before letting a small smile grace her face. The silence stretching between them seemed to relax her, so he let it be until Marinette flinched. Before Adrien could ask what was the matter she asked why nobody was here.

“Lunchbreak,” he answered. “Also, I have to tell you something.”

Although Marinette blushed–Adrien really should get a book on social cues because he didn’t know why she was blushing–she tilted his head and waved her head in a familiar I’m-listening gesture.

“We’re partners for a presentation, as I said we’re a pair.”

For a second nothing happened, then Marinette turned even redder. He was starting to get concerned but be pushed on.

“The teacher said anyone who hadn’t found a partner by the time a minute passed had thrice as much work. I know it’s not ideal but … you slept and I know you’re always busy, what with helping in the family business and being class president and your passion, so …”

Adrien trailed off as he realized that he was rambling. Marinette was speechless, her eyes and mouth open wide. Which was unsettling. Had he committed some faux pas?

“S-so, you offered…?”

“Well, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck while smiling at her.

Marinette hissed in a breath before her eyes softened and Adrien suddenly saw the sun and the moon and the stars shining in the brilliance of her smile.

“Thank you, Adrien.”

Her voice was velvet and low and Adrien couldn’t help blushing a little, too. He could be excused for his shaky voice.

“W-well, what are friends for?”

Impossibly her smile’s radiance turned up a notch.

“Yeah, what are friends for.”

_Oh,_ Adrien bemusedly thought. _Her smile is exactly like Maman’s and My Lady’s._

III

“Damn it,” Adrien growled beside her and Ladybug stifled a laugh. In the beginning of their little play dates–cheeks stop being so red!– she hadn’t known that Adrien cursed whenever he really got into a game and lost. She had been shocked to realize that her pure crush wasn’t all that pure.

Not that the knowledge helped her outside of her suit but it was another facet to the boy she claimed to love, another facet of his that she learned to love. He was incredibly competitive and once he trusted you would express his disappointment in expletives.

The first time Adrien had cursed in her presence he had frozen and his game controller had clattered to the ground. Ladybug had frozen as well with the exception of her rapidly blinking eyes. As he had turned to her a horrified expression on his face Ladybug had suddenly known. Depending on her reaction to his not model-Adrien-Agreste behaviour he’d grow more comfortable with her or would become model Agreste again, friendly but distance.

So she had snorted, looked dry at him and asked if he didn’t know any better curses because clearly if those had been supposed to be swear words then he didn’t know what he was doing.

He had kept still for a few more seconds before smiling. And exploding into a few more words that had astonished as well as shocked her. Afterwards Adrien had winked at her before managing to pull out a win of their current game. Ladybug had snapped out then and proceeded to utterly trounce him in every game he had.

“Another loss, goddammit it,” he whined crossing his arms and almost pouting. “Couldn’t you, don’t know, let me win for once?”

“Sorry, pretty boy, but I don’t even show mercy to my friends when it’s about gaming.”

“Wouldn’t it be a friendship thing to let me win? Please?”

Ladybug rounded her lips, truly popping the p in Nope and asked if he wanted another chance to win.

IV

“How long have I to stand like this?”

Marinette just hummed in response needles in her mouth. Chat would be half-afraid that she was going to hurt herself if he hadn’t watched her do this countless times before–without hurting herself. It was actually kind of funny that the girl who could get cut up by paper handled needles without spilling a single drop of blood.

Chat sighed at the continued silence. He usually visited Marinette when he was exhausted and wanted to feel cared for but not paint himself as annoying clingy shit to His Lady. And usually he’d be wrapped into blankets, fed cookies and cheese cake and be decimated by His Princess in any game she chose. Of course, sometimes she had shyly asked if she could use him as a model for her designs aimed at boys and men–that’s to say, she was using him as a live mannequin.

He was fine with that, he really was. But today had been too exhausting. Photo shoot beginning before dawn after a night patrol, two tests in school, daily akuma fight and, for good measure, another photo shoot to ‘catch the dying embers of the unfortunate cycle of life and death’, as the photographer had put it. Chat would have liked to flip him off. Of course, then, it had to be one of these rare shoots which required his father’s presence who just nodded and listened to expert’s advice.

He really just wanted to bury himself into a nest of blankets, drink hot chocolate and be petted.

“Finished,” Marinette exclaimed, her lips stretching wider than the needles in her mouth.

Oh well, at least he helped her out.

“Wait, Chat …” She trailed off looking at him before her eyes gained the same glint she had when she was running for class president. “Don’t move!”

Blinking he stared after her as she tore out of the room. His ears picked up her low cursing as she almost tumbled down the stairs and definitely crashed against a wall. Chat chuckled his arms still held up as he obeyed his Princess’ order.

Less than five minutes later Marinette whirled back into the room with a tray smelling of cheese cake and cookies and hot chocolate and various other snacks. Over her arms she also carried heaps of extra blankets. Without another word she ripped the fabric she had so painstakingly pinned to him from his body.

Just as he wanted to protest–Marinette had worked so hard to pin it just right– she dragged him to her bed, pushed the tray into his stomach and started building a fort of pillows and blankets around them. When she was finished she glanced around them before nodding and pulling him into her lap.

Chat squeaked; there was no other word for it.

“Wh-What?!”

Humming again Marinette threaded her fingers through his hair.

“You’re upset, Chaton. Drink your chocolate.” She pushed the cup towards him and he automatically lifted it to his lips and sipped at it. Or rather he sipped once and gulped down the rest like a starving stray.

A cookie was stuffed into his mouth and Marinette rubbed along his nape using circular motions that made him melt into putty.

The only thing he could let out was a little “Why?” A ‘why’ that he couldn’t explain. Why did she stop using him as mannequin just then? Why had she ripped off the fabric Chat knew she adored and would be torn and unusable now? Why was she in the blanket cocoon with him right now? Why was she pressing close to him now, close enough to pull him in her lap and touch him and be touched by him without a barrier (like the blankets had always been)?

“I see you need something else.”

“Hugs and Cuddles?”

“Yeah. And friend kisses.”

Tilting his head Chat asked what friend kisses were. Marinette laughed and grinned.

“Kisses by friends. Like this.”

And then she rubbed her nose against his brushing his mask in an eskimo kiss. Chat couldn’t help giggling and smiled the tension fleeing from his muscles and the exhaustion expelled from his bones.

V

They are intertwined together lounging on the bed and playing footsie. Marinette giggled as she managed to make Adrien squeak by scrapping alongside the sole of his feet. He scrambled away as she fell into a laughing fit.

A minute he almost broke in half laughing himself as Marinette tumbled to the floor yelping and flailing and tangled into their blanket.

Adrien continued laughing even while she glared at him. He kept laughing as a growl echoed between them and she told him with her eyes alone to help her or become a skinned cat before the hour was over.

Shaking his head he had almost tears in his eyes as he laughed and laughed. And when his laughter finally rang out in harmony with Marinette’s, who had given up on pretending to be mad, Adrien could honestly say he was ecs-cat-ic.

**Author's Note:**

> Love Square Week Day 2: Bonding


End file.
